Christina Applegate (born November 25, 1971) is an Emmy Award-winning American actress, known for playing Kelly Bundy on the long-running FOX Broadcasting Company sitcom Married… with Children. She has since established a film and television career, with major roles in several pictures, such as Farce of the Penguins, Anchorman, The Sweetest Thing, a Broadway revival of the musical Sweet Charity. She currently plays the lead character, Samantha Newly, in the ABC sitcom Samantha Who?.

Early life

Applegate was born in Hollywood, California. Her father, Robert W. Applegate, was a record producer and record company executive, and her mother, Nancy Lee Priddy, was a singer and an actress. Her parents split up shortly after her birth. She has two half-siblings (Alisa and Kyle) from her father's remarriage.

Early career

At the age of three months, Christina Applegate made her TV debut, appearing with her mother in the soap Days of Our Lives and later, at age five, in a commercial for Playtex.Her first big screen appearance followed at age nine when she was seen in the 1981 films Jaws of Satan (a.k.a. King Cobra), and Beatlemania. She debuted in a television movie as Young Grace Kelly in the biopic Grace Kelly (1983, opposite Cheryl Ladd) and appeared on her first TV series in Showtime's political comedy Washingtoon (1985), in which she played a Congressman's daughter. She was also spotted as a guest in the shows Father Murphy (1981) and Charles in Charge (1984 and 1985).

In 1986, Applegate won the role of Robin Kennedy (1986-1987), a cop's daughter, on the police drama series Heart of the City. Meanwhile, she was also seen guest starring in the sitcoms All is Forgiven, Still the Beaver, Amazing Stories, and Family Ties episode Band on the Run (1987) as Kitten.

Applegate eventually scored her most memorable role of ditzy Kelly Bundy in Fox's comedy series Married... with Children. She portrayed her character for ten years (1987-1997). While working on the series, Applegate was seen in Dance 'Til Dawn (1988, NBC) and in Streets (1990), in which a teenage drug addict is stalked by a psychotic police officer. Applegate guest-starred in 21 Jump Street (1988), Top of the Heap (1991, as Kelly Bundy), and hosted Saturday Night Live (May 8, 1993) and Mad TV (1996).

The character of Sue Ellen Crandell in the comedy feature Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991) was Applegate's first starring role. She followed it up with films such as Vibrations (1995), Across the Moon (1995), Wild Bill (1995), Mars Attacks! (1996), and Nowhere (1997). After the sitcom Married... with Children was canceled in May 1997, Applegate starred as Claudine Van Doozen in the independent feature Claudine's Return (a.k.a. Kiss of Fire), was cast in the action-comedy The Big Hit, and played the fiancée of a Mob descendant in the Mafia satire Jane Austen's Mafia (1998).